I learned SQL with copy/paste/modify from PHPBB code base. When I got my first web programming job I could write basic select/insert/update/delete but knew almost nothing of joins. I learned the rest by reading MySQL docs on the job. (Later I also improved my understanding of joins by doing an MS Access project.)

So SQL is just as easy to pick up as anything else, but you're going to be horrible at it at first and need to get past the mental block of seeing something so different conceptually to "normal" programming.